Dave Kidd: Jadon Sancho benefits from growing up away from Premier League glare… and showed it with England debut

English wonderkids like Theo Walcott, Joe Cole and Micah Richards might not have fulfilled their potential, but Sancho can fly under the radar in Germany

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Dave Kidd

12 Oct 2018, 21:49

Updated: 12 Oct 2018, 21:49

SO where did it all go wrong, Wayne Rooney - all-time leading goalscorer for Manchester United and England, Champions League winner, Footballer of the Year, five-time Premier League champion?

And it didn’t quite work out did it, Michael Owen - Ballon d’Or winner, scorer of 40 England goals, winner of ever major domestic honour and the only man to have played centre-forward for Real Madrid, Liverpool and Manchester United?

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Jadon Sancho has swapped the glare of the Premier League for the Bundesliga. Illustration by LovattoCredit: Lovatto

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When Wayne Rooney first emerged as a teenager made his debut, he was called the future of English footballCredit: --

As for you, Joe Cole - winner of just the three Premier Leagues, three cups and 56 England caps - you were pretty damned hopeless, weren’t you?

Cole, arguably the most naturally gifted of the lot, was either misunderstood by managers or lacked a certain footballing intelligence, depending on your view.

Walcott, the youngest England debutant in history, was taken to the 2006 World Cup at 17, yet he has still never played a single minute at football’s greatest tournament.

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Michael Owen's career was hampered by injuriesCredit: Getty - Contributor

Ex-Liverpool and Manchester United striker Michael Owen 'hated' playing football during the last seven years of his career

And though he remains a decent Premier League performer with Everton, Walcott was pretty much confirmed as an ex-England international when Gareth Southgate dropped him on his 28th birthday, some 18 months ago.

Sterling already has 44 caps at the age of 23 but expectations emanating from his status as a one-time hot prospect will always weigh on his shoulders - as with 18-year-old England players like Marcus Rashford, Jack Wilshere, Luke Shaw and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

And finally there’s the truly unfulfilled talent of Richards, the former Manchester City defender who won the last of 13 England caps aged 23 and now, at 30, has been a non-playing Aston Villa employee for two years. The English Winston Bogarde.

So what does all this mean for Sancho, the first member of a full England squad born in the current Millennium?

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In the end, Micah Richards didn't live up to the hypeCredit: Getty Images - Getty

It probably suggests that by doing his growing up in Dortmund – where he moved, from Manchester City, in the summer of 2017 - he will be spared the intensity of the spotlight which was shone on those other child geniuses.

Of course, Bundesliga football is readily accessible on TV and internet, yet Sancho still won’t have to handle anything like the scrutiny he’d be under were he playing for a top-six club in England.

Sancho is not being rushed by Borussia - he has started just once in the Bundesliga this season - yet has proved himself a true game-changing sub, with one goal and a staggering six assists, more than any other player in a major European league.

The Londoner - a wide forward, rather than a classic winger - has also started in two Champions League victories.

Renowned for his pace and directness as well as his ability pick a killer cross or pass, Sancho is as exciting a prospect as Rooney, Owen or Cole at the same age.

His move to Germany, so bold and an unusual for an English kid, clearly gives him the chance to broaden his horizons as a footballer and a young man.

But it should also have the pleasing side-effect of allowing him to fly under the radar just a little in his homeland.

As a natural risk-taking player, this will benefit Sancho especially.

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Called up to the England squad for the first time, much is expected of Sancho, 18Credit: Getty - Contributor

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But playing in Germany should allow Sancho's game to grow more organicallyCredit: AFP or licensors

By the very nature of his game, as well as his inexperience, he will make the wrong decisions and he’ll have bad games where nothing quite seems to come off.

And if Sancho can go through that growing process without his game being analysed as forensically as it might be on Match of the Day, Monday Night Football and, yes, even in the English papers, then that will do him no harm.

Rooney, Owen and Cole all went and played abroad at some stage during their careers.

Should Sancho continue to blossom and flourish in German football, his fellow teenage prodigies might wish that they’d all headed overseas sooner.

TOM CAIRNEY is an injury-prone 27-year-old yet to prove himself as a regular Premier League performer - so he may never get a call-up from England boss Gareth Southgate.

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Tom Cairney has played for Scotland twice at senior levelCredit: Getty - Contributor